Love Has A Language

In the world which we live, we communicate via languages. English-speaking people speak English to express ideas, feelings and emotions to each other. Yoruba-speaking, Igbo-speaking, Hausa-speaking, Chinese-speaking, Hindu-speaking….. Whatever language you speak, you express yourself in your language to someone who understands the language, to do get something done or to get a feeling expressed.

Now, love works the same way. The challenge many lovers or many people have with the people they care about is that they are expressing love, but the other party doesn’t understand that language.

Yesterday we talked about Love is active i.e. love does something. Now somebody is saying ‘ But I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing but this person doesn’t get that I love him!’. Possibly the person doesn’t understand the language of love that you are speaking.

We are thankful for Dr. Gary Chapman, who helped us with this. He gave us five love languages, which I will be talking about briefly today. Five love languages that you need to sure your loved one understands. You might be speaking it, the question is ‘Does he or she understand it?’ because it is the love language that your loved ones understands that will work. So you will need to speak the same language.

There are five, so let me touch on them briefly.

The first one is Quality Time. Now most of these languages are usually based on the background of the individuals. Some people just grew up understanding love to be that, so most times, it is a background-related issue that determines how a person understands love.

For some people, the only or major way they understand love is when you spend time with them. They just want you to be there. You hear her say ‘You have not visited me in a while’. You hear him say ‘ All day, you were watching TV, you were on your phone, you were not talking to me’. They just want you to be there! Some people understand love as time spent with then. So does your spouse or loved one want you to spend quality time with him or her?, now is the time to begin to analyze it!

Another love language some people understand is Acts Of Service. This means helping or serving practically. She likes you to come to the kitchen to help with the dishes. She wants you, if she’s cooking, to be in the kitchen, not in the sitting room watching a football game, but helping her pass the spaghetti she wants to cook or the cup of water she wants to add to the rice she’s cooking. She wants you to serve. She just wants you to help.

Recently, I’ve discovered that I need to add that for some people, help is not necessarily domestic, it is whatever I’m passionate about, help me with it! Peradventure he’s working on a project, he wants you to suggest ideas, he wants you to think about it with him, he wants you to say things like ‘Oh, I did a research on that thing you are doing, would it be ok if you add this to it?’ That’s an act of service and that’s how some people understand love!

The third way to speak love is Words of Affirmation. For some people, the only love language they understand is when you speak affirmative words to them. Words like ‘I’m proud of you!’, ‘I love you!’, ‘I miss you!’, ‘You mean the world to me!’, ‘I’m thankful I found you!’, ‘ I look forward to spending the rest of my life with you!’…. They just want to hear love. They want you to speak it as often as possible and as romantic as possible. That’s how they understand love, words of affirmation!

Fourthly, we have Receiving of Gifts! Now some people just want you to buy gifts. They like receiving gifts. They want you to come from work or school, wherever and whenever to just say ‘ I was passing by the mall and I thought I should buy you this’, ‘ I saw this on IG and thought you would like this’. They just love receiving gifts. Getting gifts from you tells them that you love them.

Fifth, Physical Touch. Some people just like being held. Now if you’re not married, I want to specifically ask that you don’t make this your primary love language because you don’t need this yet so you don’t complicate things for yourself. But for married people, if your spouse really like to be touched, please, please, every now and then, a hand on the neck, a hand across the shoulder, a hand across the waist, to the sensitive parts, just caressing or cuddling…etc.

Some just want to feel that to know that they are loved. If you are not married, you can limit it to holding of hands,the hugs and whatever works for you that is decent and that would not tempt you too much. But some people just understand love as physical touch!

That said, let me quickly explain. Why this is important is you as a person might understand love to be quality time so you are giving your spouse or loved one so much time but the receiving end or the person you are trying to love, does not like quality time or does not have quality time as a priority, what he or she wants is words of affirmation. So you are spending so much time with him/her yet you are not saying things he/she wants to hear. So you feel you are showing love but the other party is saying ‘Do you love me?’ Why? Because you’re not expressing love the way he/she understands it.

So I want to ask that you please have a conversation with your loved one and ask – how do you understand love? Do you want me to spend more time with you? Do you want me to serve you? Is it words you really like? Do you want gifts? Are you a touch person? Make a conversation and understand your loved one so you know how to express love.

Some people have more than one major love language, some people have just one, some people possibly have all five but there are always the priority ones. So please have a conversation with your loved one, find out what he/she wants and I’m sure from there, things would get better and you are both speaking the same language.

I look forward to the other days ahead!
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